Advocate for HINDU SUCCESSION ACT in Mumbai

Mr Aniket Nerurkar successfully contest and represent his client's in the High Court.

Right by birth: On daughters and Hindu Succession act

SC decision on coparcenary rights of women is in line with the aim of ending discrimination

The latest decision of the Supreme Court on the right of Hindu daughters to ancestral property corrects an obvious anomaly in the interpretation of a crucial 2005 amendment to the Hindu Succession Act, 1956. The verdict settles the question whether the coparcenary right of daughters comes into effect only if the father through whom they claim that right was alive on the day the amendment came into force. The apex court has now categorically ruled that the daughters’ right flows from their birth and not by any other factor such as the existence of their fathers. In other words, it has rejected the common misinterpretation that only daughters of coparceners who were alive on that day could get an equal share in property. The court has rightly recognized that the amendment conferred equal status as a coparcener on daughters in Hindu families governed by Mitakshara law, and this rights accrued by birth. The change came into effect from September 9, 2005, but with a provision that partitions or testamentary disposition that had taken place prior to December 0, 2004 – the date on which the amendment Bill was introduced in the Rajya Sabha – will remain valid and unaffected by the change. This led to the interpretation that the daughters’ coparcenary rights, being prospective, would not come into effect unless both the coparcener father and his daughter were alive on September 9, 2005. This position was crystallized in a 2015 judgement of the Supreme Court in Prakash and Others vs. Phulavati. This judgement now stands overruled.

The latest decision of the Supreme Court on the right of Hindu daughters to ancestral property corrects an obvious anomaly in the interpretation of a crucial 2005 amendment to the Hindu Succession Act, 1956. The verdict settles the question whether the coparcenary right of daughters comes into effect only if the father through whom they claim that right was alive on the day the amendment came into force. The apex court has now categorically ruled that the daughters’ right flows from their birth and not by any other factor such as the existence of their fathers. In other words, it has rejected the common misinterpretation that only daughters of coparceners who were alive on that day could get an equal share in property. The court has rightly recognized that the amendment conferred equal status as a coparcener on daughters in Hindu families governed by Mitakshara law, and this rights accrued by birth. The change came into effect from September 9, 2005, but with a provision that partitions or testamentary disposition that had taken place prior to December 0, 2004 – the date on which the amendment Bill was introduced in the Rajya Sabha – will remain valid and unaffected by the change. This led to the interpretation that the daughters’ coparcenary rights, being prospective, would not come into effect unless both the coparcener father and his daughter were alive on September 9, 2005. This position was crystallized in a 2015 judgement of the Supreme Court in Prakash and Others vs. Phulavati. This judgement now stands overruled.